Orange Hotel (Donghuamen) – Nanjing Review

Our time in Nanjing was well served by this centrally located hotel, just a 2-3 minute walk from metro station Minggugong (明故宫站) on Line 2.

Nanjing will likely remain one of our top places in China, because it characterised the east of china region as a place where modern China co-exists with the traditional and both don't seem out of place. In the centre of Nanjing you have the Jifeng Tower, a huge skyscraper that dwarfs European skyscrapers like The Shard. Go to the top observation level and you will find yourself looking over the rolling Qixia Mountain Scenic Area (Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum) and Xuanwu Lake Park (Hire Boats).

Walk to the opposite side of the tower and in the distance you can make out The Gate of China (中华门), the long stretching City Wall and high speed trains whizzing around at 300kph, taking passengers between Shanghai, Hangzhou and towards the west of China. This sums up Nanjing, it's a city of many colours and had surprisingly more history and attractions than we thought originally.

If you are foodie, just head to food street, where you will find dozens of restaurants all showcasing cuisines from across China and some international ones as well!

We had just a few nights in Nanjing and it wasn't originally part of the trip, but we did it anyway as it's easy to go to Shanghai from there. I would recommend at least 3 nights to see some of the main attractions, but really a week would have been better as we could have seen a whole lot more!

Hotel Name

Orange Hotel (Nanjing Donghuamen)

Address (English)

532-1 East Zhongshan Road (Zhongshan Dong Lu),Nanjing

Address (Chinese)

中山东路532-1号,南京

Area / Locale

Located to south of the Qixia Mountain Scenic Area, locale / area is called Donghuamen

Accommodation Type

3* modern ‘budget' hotel. It's a small local chain, with multiple hotels in Nanjing.

Public Transport Nearby

Metro Line 2, station is called Minggugong (明故宫站) and located a short 2-3 minute walk. Turn left out of the hotel and walk down the street and you will find it on the first corner of the main road you come across. If you are arriving at the metro station to check-in, choose Exit 3 and take escalators up then turn right and walk around the entrance and keep going down the road for a few minutes, you can't miss it.

Local Landmark Nearby

Nanjing University of Astronautics / Aeronautics is located on the walk to and from the hotel, if you don't go past the campus you are going in the wrong direction! There's also on the other side of the road a big dodgy looking building that is a Sauna / Spa, its lit up really bright at night, that is almost opposite the hotel.

Room Rate

It cost us CNY 268 per room, per night. So worked out to be CNY 134 each, this is on the expensive side of our budget however after seeing the many hotels & hostels available in Nanjing and their prices this is an OK price for reasonable accommodation and you won't find the same level of quality for any less.

Room Type

Deluxe Queen Room with en-suite.

Room Amenities

Power shower (really awesome, best in China!), shampoo, shower gel and soap was provided. We also had a little friend named ‘Samuel' a tropical fish in the room for company. They also give you on check-in a canvas bag with a couple of apples in it, then again apples everyday after the maid had made the room up. Nice touch, but they should rebrand as the Apple hotel to be consistent with this approach (Oranges are expensive in China thus no free Oranges in room everyday I assume is the reasoning).

WiFi

Complimentary in-room WiFi available. WiFi signal was pretty good, but as most Chinese hotels seems to drop out after about 1 hour of use, which means reconnecting. Also upload speed was near to 0kbps as is usual in China. Otherwise it worked just fine!

Restaurant Choices

The hotel had a breakfast option which was really really cheap. I think it was like RMB 10 or something. We don't really eat breakfast so didn't see what it was like. The hotel otherwise doesn't have a restaurant and the choices for foreigners is scarce. We went into the centre of town for lunch and dinner (15-20 minutes on Metro).

Nearby Convenience Stores

The nearby Metro station has a great ‘Quik' store which is kind of like a small version of 7 Eleven. You could eat lunch, dinner and snacks here if you had no other options and it is open until the Metro closes around 10-11pm. Best option for buying water as well. There is a Carrefour further up the road if you were inclined to visit, but best to take the metro up to the next stop (Xi'anmen), walking was too far.

Additional Hotel Facilities

Nothing we noticed or needed. I don't think laundry was provided as a service, if it was it would have been expensive as we didn't use it! Also if you are needing to book train tickets for your onwards journey, next door is a train ticket office.

Our review

When looking for accommodation in Nanjing it was hard to find a place (even hostels) up to a good enough standard without paying a fortune. There are plenty of hotels in many price brackets but we needed accommodation near the centre which is basically as close to Xinjiekou Metro station as its a cross point between lines 1 & 2 and is a short distance to all the best sights. The business hotels are generally reasonable in price, but you never know if they are OK to accept foreigners in the hotel. The Orange hotel group came up a few times and they had a couple of locations across the city. The one we stayed at was the cheaper of all, but also one of the newest to open. It was a little further out than others BUT it really only equated to 10 minute difference to get from places probably and it was a big discount on the central Orange Hotels.

When you check-in you get a canvas bag with some apples and information. The check-in staff spoke a good enough level of English for no problems to occur in mis-translations. They were also very friendly and quick with scanning the passports (something we really need when still carrying our backpacks!). The room was really great, it was modern and more to a european styling than Chinese, the bed was comfortable and soft, the bathroom was clean and had a small window to let light in but also came equipped with a working blind!

I also liked we had a little fish buddy called ‘Samuel' in our room. Nice touch and there is also a Rubic's Cube where if you can finish you get something for free. But by the looks of it, it had odd numbers of colour stickers on it!

Another positive is the deposit was just RMB 100, like hostels we have stayed at and they accepted debit card for paying the room rate (Union Pay).

The positives:

Really modern, clean rooms with a good deal of space

Comfortable, soft beds (2nd best in China so far!)

Powerful shower with 24 hour hot water (Best shower in China so far!)

Daily maid service that we never noticed a knock for when we were still in

Daily free apples

Free room amenities that were good quality

Central location with metro nearby and most attractions in arms length

Bags were taken up to the room for us

Friendly staff & service better than most 4/5* hotels in China

The negatives:

Honestly I cannot think of a single one, one of our best hotel stays ever!

I can't say a negative word about The Orange Hotel, it was great and even though it was over our daily budget, I wasn't resentful as it was fantastic value for money in an otherwise expensive city with little quality accommodation.

Accommodation Summary

SERVICE (Staff Helpfulness)

ROOMS (Decor, Equipment)

BATHROOMS (Equip., Amenities)

CLEANLINESS (Lobby, Rooms)

LOCATION (Surroundings)

PRICES (Value)

GENERAL IMPRESSION

Photos of Orange Hotel Donghuamen:

Good amount of space, but got a little crowded when we unpacked!

Really modern bathroom with small window for letting natural light in.

This has been the best shower so far in China. The power is awesome on it!

The message reads “Hey there, my name is Samuel. I don't feel lonely anymore now that you're here. Are you good at Rubik's cub? If you can work out 3 sides, I'll buy you a cup of coffee at the Cafe. Almost forgot to tell you that I'm on a diet and a nutritionalist is taking care of me. Please don't feed me anything; I have a problem controlling my appetite. You know us fish…:-)
If I don't look well please dial “9” and call for a doctor, thanks. Well then, do you want to chat first or play the Rubik's cube?”

Darryl left the shorelines of England in 2013 to study and travel in China and South East Asia for a year. Darryl is a co-founder of escapingthedesk.com, a travel blog with the aim of sharing travel tips, country & city guides for other backpackers. Visit my Google+ page.